African Politics and Society In Early Modern Times (695-699)

• Most of the African people were farmers.
• Some commonly grown crops were millet, rice, sorghum, yams, melons and a few other vegetables.
• Cattle, sheep, and goats were common livestock.
• People farmed in the Niger river valley as early as 500 BCE.

• Slaves combined African and European raditions to make a unique African-American culture.
• The Portugues and other European nations spread Christianity and Islam throughout Africa.
• The Songhay emperors viewed Islam as a cultural foundation for cooperation with Muslim merchants.
• Early African religion was polytheistic based on nature.

• Between 2000 BCE and 1000 CE Bantu-speaking people migrated throughout all of sub-Saharan Africa.

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• These Bantu Speakers started to form Chiefdoms and small regional Kingdoms.
• Between the 8th and 16th Centuries CE, larger kingdoms dominate Africa.
• Ghana was the first of these kingdoms.
  • Ghana was able to gain and keep power by controling tran-Saharan trade through taxation.
  • Use their riches to build a large army
  • Ghana was eventually overtaken by the Mali empire
  • Eventually over time in the 15 century the Mali empire fell to the state of Songhay
• Songhay
  • Sunni Ali, a ruler during the Songhay reign, was able to expand with the help of his imperial navy on the Niger River.
  • Originaly a city state as well as one of the major trading cities of Africa
  • Was built in the 8th century
  • Conqured Trading Cities of Timbuktu and Jenne
  • All of the Emporers were Muslim

• Global trade networks bring deep change to Africa by creating port cities and developing maritime trade.
• Many laws were created to protect merchants, travelers, and property.
• Theivery was punishable by either death or slavery.

• The Atlantic Slave Trade was a much larger industry than slavery in Africa or Islamic regions.
• Most of the slaves involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade went to the Americas or the Caribbean.
• A caste system called was developed under Mali rule. It was not based on birth, but rather on the type of trade one practiced.
• Farmers, government, military, and hunters were in a high caste called the horonu.